Muslim believers of many types believe and claim that secularism (separation of Mosque and State) is incompatible with Islam. Is this true? How is it or is it not compatible with Islam?
WRS - Allahumma! Save me from your followers!
I think its more to do with the situation of the countries which are majority Muslim, as most are divided by tribal and ethnic rivalries, which makes them fall back onto the one thing that will assure them their rights, religion.
The Mojahedin-e-Khalq (MEK, MKO, NCRI, PMOI, etc) certainly think so.
I recently attended their 2005 National Convention for a Democratic, Secular Republic in Iran. They seem convinced that secular government is very compatible with Islam.
Read more about it here
I think a muslim can be persuaded to secularism but it needs to be argued in a very careful way. A muslim’s first instinct is to be against secular law because it seems to be implying doing something other than God’s law. What you need to do is persuade them that you can be both secular and obedient to God’s law at the same time.
You need to argue along the following lines:
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There are really only a very few “laws” actually contained in the quran itself. That is, statements that actually declare themselves to be laws. These are the hudud laws - those that are contained in the quran and are therefore not open to question.
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Those laws that are contained in the quran are very few in number and very specific in punishment - amputation of hands for thieves, lashing adulterers etc.
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However the laws are also a bit vague and don’t really adequately cover detailed situations. Politics is not generally about big issues like invading Iraq or the Palestine issue. It’s generally a really boring thing about local councils deciding bus timetables and stuff. Or how many beds the local hospital can afford.
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The quran doesn’t give much detail on bus timetables and hospital beds so we have to devise some kind of human framework for resolving these issues - the boring issues. The kind of issues that 99% of politics is about.
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Thus a muslim has to accept that some kind of secular framework is necessary. And he also has to accept that this framework does not in any way detract from God’s plan. It operates by the side of, and in addition to, God’s plan.
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They’ve now accepted the principle of secularism. The rest is just details, arguing about how far it should go to be most effective (and most economically beneficial).
How does that work as an argument?
I know multiple Islamic families in the US. Should I tell them they need to get out of the country? I’ve actually prayed in a Mosque accompanied by an Islamic family. Even though I don’t believe in god. If secularism is incompatibe with Islam, why is their a mosque in the town I live?
I’m not any sort of religious scholar, but I’ve heard it mooted that the principle of the unity/oneness of God (one of the five pillars of Islam I believe) rules out any separation of Church and State, since there can be nothing that does not does not contain God.
Also, while Christianity and Judaism, to a certain extent, had a history of being repressed by secular authorities, this does not occur in the early history of Islam - Muhammed was a “head of state” as well as “head of church”
As I said, I’m no expert, so I expect there are numerous holes in this theory…
Well, while there may be only one Islam, there’s more than one man’s understanding of Islam.
Doesn’t Islam teach tolerance of other religions? There is also the issue that there are many Muslim who live in countries where Islam is a minority religion. They will necessarily have to deal with secularism.
Turkey seems to have done OK.
Mali is a muslim state and it is secular. I’m sure there are other secular muslim states too like Indonesia
Of course it is compatable with secularism. Almost all religions were tied to the government at one point or another. If anything, doctorine shift over time (for example, Jewish people no longer need a temple to do sacrifices in) can acommodate almost anything.
There are already several secular Muslim states, and many secular states with large Muslim populations that are not pushing for religious rule at all.
But it’s hard for us rootless secular America to really comprehend a religion deeply tied to a particular land. India is a secular state, but they allow for religious law- for example, Muslims are subject to Islamic law regarding marriage and inheretence and the like. The religion has been there so much longer than the state, that the state really has no way of even thinking about controlling it. We are dealing as much with ancient traditions and tribal dynamics as much as we are with governments and churches. I’d imagine a lot of the church/state situations that pop up in coming years will be different than the one we have in the US. But thats okay. The US doesn’t have a monopoly on secularism.
Anyway, it was only a couple hundred years ago that Christian countries were not at all secular. Kings were considred divinely appointed and acted as the heads of their church, and all justice and law was based on religion. I’m pretty sure some European states still have offical churches. Even modern Christianity’s early history is a story of popes and emperors that held great power. At many points the only thing “secular” about things was that the church was bigger and more powerful than the governments.
Religions change. States change. Human progress keeps marching messily on.
I certainly hope, and believe, that secularism and Islam are compatible.
I’ve read several interesting pieces of the past couple of years about the need for an Islamic Reformation - similar to the Christian one several centuries ago. Separating religion from the state is highly desirable.
Won’t happen though, the religions got too much of a stranglehold on the population. And even then, say if one countries population achieved this, who’s to say that people from other Muslim communities and countries with a more Conservative and repressive background will come to stop them?
This what annoys me the most, in areas where Muslims in the Middle East or South Asia make progess, there’s always 3 times the amount wanting to drag them down again.
It all boils down to how liberal your interpretation of Islam is. Most muslim countries opt for some kind of compromise which usually rules out beheadings, amputations, etc.
My personal opinion as a muslim is that I’d much, much rather live in a secular country (as would most of you).
True. I didn’t mean that secularism is incompatible with Islam, I just meant that there is a doctrinal basis for a theocratic Muslism state. Whether you actually get one is another matter.
I think pretty much all religions teach tolerance, yet pretty much all religion has been used to justify killing people at one time or another.
Benard, but as even sven has pointed out, most religions have a doctrinal basis for theocracy. The Church was intimately involved in governing for the many years in many states. Judaism was a tribal state religion that adapted to life in exile. So on.
The difference is that in muh of the rest of the world secular postulates have replaced religious ones as the basis for most public behavior while religious postulates still govern private actions. This has allowed for a common community of different cultures within and between societies. Some elements of the Islamic world are resistant to joining this community of communities for a vareity of reasons. This reluctance is less specific to Islam than to Arab history and culture somewhat independent of religion.
You’ve cleverly hit upon the hidden faults in my theory! Damn you! 
I suppose all religions are, technically speaking, incompatible with secularism; the only difference being the extent to which, historically, the incompatibility has been enforced (for want of a better word) - dependent on, as you say, cultural factors rather than anything intrinsic to the religion itself.